Princess to Pay on NCFs, But Only For Now

Princess Cruises is paying 10 percent on non-commissionable
fares but don’t get your hopes up that the plan will become
permanent.

Rather, the incentive is designed to quickly boost sales on the
Grand Princess’ Caribbean departures between May 4 and May 25. The
Grand was scheduled to reposition to the Mediterranean at the time,
but will now remain in the Caribbean, due to sluggish advance sales
in Europe.

“The deal is that we’re working under a pretty short time line,
with the redeployment of the Grand,” said Dean Brown, executive
vice president of customer service and sales. “We’ve used bonus
commission coupons in the past or additional percentage points, but
we thought agents would respond more quickly to the NCFs. We’re
also offering aggressive prices starting at $499 for those May
voyages.”

Norwegian Cruise Line implemented a 10 percent commission on
NCFs for agents who double their bookings with the line this
year.

“This is completely different than NCL,” Brown said. “We’re
trying to draw attention to close-in, brand new departures.”

Depending on the response, will Brown consider this type of
incentive again? “Let’s hope we don’t have these kind of situations
again,” he said. “It’s a very unusual circumstance to redeploy a
ship and to have these close-in voyages.”

Meanwhile, most of the passengers booked on Med cruises on the
Grand have been accommodated on similar voyages on sister ship,
Golden Princess. “We were able to accommodate everyone,” Brown
said. “We moved their bookings and deposits, right over to the
Golden and contacted them. We’re working with everyone to make sure
the new dates and cabins work. It’s going fairly well. And we
appreciate all the support agents are giving us.”